STUDY OF FORESTRY

New Zealand Times, Volume XLVII, Issue 10956, 19 July 1921, Page 6

STUDY OF FORESTRY

REVIEW OF COMMERCIAL AREAS. "Sixty ne*r cent, of the world's stirface is a potential forest, land capable of bearing vegetation, 4 * said Mr W. R. McGregor, assistant in biology, in the course of a lecture bn "Forestry/* The approximate distribution of the commercial forests of the world was shown by map, and the lecturer explained how climate and soil conditions changed according to climatic 'influences. The inter-action of these climatic and soil conditions produced a forest, story* upon Story t great trees with irregular spreading crowns, smaller trees with close compact heads, a dense impenetrable thicket of ground vegetation, the whole infested with numerous perching plants,-arid interlaced with the vines of a trailing lianes, making up a vast solid mass of vegetation. In the temperate zones other types of forest were found. In Eutodo deciduous forests of beach, oak, birch, ash, and alder were specially , chSracfceristic. Sometimes these occurred vf almost pure for* mations, though often they entered into the composition of forests of a mixed nature. Similar forest? in North America and Japan were also described.'' In Antarctic South America, said the lecturer, were found vast forests of beech, corresponding with' the beech forests of southern New Zealand. Th "the,‘©old temperate regions extensive pine forests extended into the frozen wastes of the Arctic. These were specially important commercially. The manner in which the larch forest of Siberia eventually gives place to the treeless waste of the frozen tundra was illustrated. 4 In conclusion, the leoturer touched upon New Zealand forests.